


words and affection,

by fuckingkinney



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Anal Sex, And only once, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, M/M, Past Abuse, but wanted to mention it just incase!, q slur is mentioned - not as a hate comment, some porn, trying to have healthy communication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:26:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24372013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuckingkinney/pseuds/fuckingkinney
Summary: The point is: Richie talks a lot.During movies, when Eddie’s trying to work in the spare room that became his office, when he’s rehearsing, when he sings in the shower, when they have sex.The point is: Eddie doesn’t talk a lot.He doesn’t know how to.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 4
Kudos: 61





	words and affection,

Richie’s always had a way with words. His career, it makes sense. Eddie can’t think of a time that he wasn’t talking. Filled to the brim with information, both interesting and completely useless, smarter than anyone gave him credit for because he didn’t know when to close his mouth for longer than two minutes. It used to irritate him when they were younger; how Richie just didn’t know when to be quiet. That he always had to have the last word. That people didn’t take him seriously because his mouth ran three dozen words forward than his brain and they jumbled up, sometimes. That people didn’t take him as seriously as they should. Richie was smart. Richie was fucking clever – always had been. 

But this makes sense, Eddie thinks, as he watches Richie night after night. He can talk to one person as easily as he can talk to thousands, sweaty and jumping around to different points. Simultaneously collected and erratic. He gets to the point, eventually, but it takes five minutes longer to get there than it would for most people. Richie can’t stop talking; head so full of vocabulary and stories that he knows will get him a laugh. Eddie had watched him brainstorm, to writing, to the third draft, to the fifth, the last. The small bars that became bigger and bigger, until they were here. Bigger than before, because apparently coming out and being labelled a ‘Queer Icon’ were good his image. A rebrand that had Richie nervous, awake at two o’clock in the morning, pacing their apartment in boxers, covered in sweat and talking, talking, talking——

**The point is:** Richie talks a lot.

During movies, when Eddie’s trying to work in the spare room that became his office, when he’s rehearsing, when he sings in the shower, when they have sex. It’s almost like a challenge to make him shut up; to break him down until he makes noises rather than words. 

Eddie loves it, though. Cannot deny it. When Richie whispers, begs, pleads during sex. When Eddie presses a hand against the back of his neck and keeps the side of his face planted against a pillow, glasses long gone. Hips moving, alternating between slow and fast, just to see what he will get out him. The flex of his fingers until his knuckles go white, jaw going slack, the tension in his back. The way he couldn’t be quiet if he tried.

The neighbours complained, a lot, at first. Eddie’s doesn’t really blame them. Eddie can’t exactly blame _himself_ either. 

“Please, Eddie— Oh my fucking god— _Please._ ” Richie begs and Eddie can’t help but give him everything he wants. 

Gone are the awkward encounters in hallways of people who know what he’d done the night before. The afternoon, a few hours before that, because apparently Richie couldn’t even be quiet while _giving_ a blowjob. Glasses leaving an indent on his face, because he refused to take them off like anyone with some ounce of sense, hand working over his cock as Eddie gripped the edge of the couch like it’d help him. 

“You like that?” he’d ask, and Eddie dug teeth into his bottom lip and nodded so hard he thought his head would break from his shoulders. Richie always laughed – always loud, always capturing every bit of attention he can even without trying. Not that he could look elsewhere. “Yeah –—” he’d start, the loose grin on his face smug at the edges as he twists his wrist and Eddie smothers a noise behind his teeth. “You look like you fucking love it,” and then he’d swallow him down again before Eddie could say anything about it.

**The point is:** Eddie doesn’t talk a lot. 

He doesn’t know how to. Too many years of repressed feelings and keeping his mouth closed. Of letting his mother tell him how to feel and act. Of not wanting to upset her, so he kept his real thoughts and emotions to himself. It became easier, after a while, and then it was easy to slip into that role with Myra. They were too alike, and it’s only after nearly dying for a second time that he realised it. Truly realised it to the point he hadn’t been able to do anything but leave.

Didn’t wait for her to get home once, after weeks in Derry trying to be able to breathe without crying, with Richie at his side, talking enough for the both of them, he sat down in what was once his home and felt empty. It was too quiet. Too minimal. He missed a hospital room more than his wife. He missed someone he hadn’t known or twenty-seven years to the point that it felt like he’d been stabbed through the chest again. 

When he’d arrived, wedding ring left on the table in his old kitchen, he hadn’t been able to explain. Lips opening and closing, resembling some sort of fish, and Richie hadn’t pried it out of him. Hadn’t judged him. Had let him inside, even though it was dark outside and Eddie had suitcases that hadn’t been unpacked from when they intended to leave Derry together the first time. He’d left them in the guest room, and then followed Richie into his room. Slept beside him as they had all this time before. 

Richie hadn’t asked, and Eddie hadn’t offered anything. Had gripped his hand in the middle of the bed, when both of their eyes closed, and hoped it was enough. 

It hadn’t been easy afterwards, because despite how Richie talked, sometimes he just didn’t know how to say the right words. Didn’t know when the right time to say them were. So, he said something else instead; changed the subject so easily that it took Eddie a few minutes to realise what they’d diverted from. 

One night, they’d been in the kitchen. Close. Too close. Fingers brushing against each other’s hands until Richie was clearing his throat, moving so that he could walk away. Changing the subject. Opening the fridge as he grabbed tomatoes instead of acknowledging the expression on Eddie’s face. Talking about fucking Kermit the Frog or something. Eddie didn’t know, didn’t care. 

**The point is:** Eddie uses actions more than his words. 

He’d pressed him against the fridge and kissed him until Richie was gasping against his mouth. Until he was babbling that he’d wanted this for as long as he could remember, when he couldn’t, too. That he was talking and saying his name. _Eds, Eddie, holy fuck— Don’t do this if you can’t—_

Eddie had smothered bruises against his skin, Richie spread out beneath him with a flush working down his chest. Marks created by his mouth that he hoped explained everything he didn’t know how to put in words. 

He makes notes of things, small things. What Richie likes, what he hates. What he's allergic to, and what he just can't eat without upsetting his stomach no matter how much he insists differently. His favourite film, music. His favourite takeout place two blocks over and his order. Makes sure to pick it up more often and surprise him when he's on the lead up to his first tour since this all started. When Richie is awake at two o'clock in the morning and Eddie had made him realise that, yes, he does like the smell of lavender in his pillows and camomile tea. That it calms his anxiety.

It's just small things, but he tries to show him every day. Tries to show him what this means to him. What _Richie_ means to him.

When they crowd together and Eddie presses up to wash his hair in the shower. When Richie kisses him, slow and dirty, and Edde drops to his knees and lets Richie cradle his jaw between his large hands.

It's small things. Those are easy.

There's still something more there, though. Unspoken between the two of them, and Richie always looks like he wants to when he's on his back, searching for his glasses as Eddie goes to get a washcloth. When Eddie buys him a typewriter because Richie complains how easy it is to be distracted when he's on his Mac. When he surprises Richie with the rest of the Losers and Patty to his first show.

It's no surprise when Richie was the first to say it. 

“I love you,” he whispered one night, and Eddie hadn’t been able to say it back. As his eyes went wide, lit by lamps he’d insisted _they_ needed on the bedside tables. As Richie stroked his face with his knuckles, a sad smile on his face. 

“I—” Eddie had tried, because he wanted to say it. 

“It’s okay,” he’d told him, quieter than before. “You don’t have to say it.” 

Only, Eddie wanted to say it after too many years of not being able to. After lying through his teeth and then staying quiet because he’d said what had been wanted of him, not because it was what he’d wanted to say at the time. Richie drags a thumb over his bottom lip, and they both sigh. 

Eddie kisses him instead. 

**The point is:** Richie knows, and that’s enough. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! this is the first thing i've written in like, well over a year. if not two. i have wanted to write something richie/eddie for so fucking long but i've just never really had any sort of inspiration of something that i felt would be slightly different to the incredible fics already out there. this fic is also not proof-read/beta'd at all. any grammar mistakes, etc. i apologize!
> 
> feel free to follow me on twitter, i talk about richie and bill hader constantly: @lgbtrashmouth


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